300 Billion Dollar Hearings To Spanlate The Full Text Of The American Clothing And Footwear Association

On June 17, 2019 -21, 24 and -25, the United States trade representative's Office (USTR) is holding a 7 day hearing on the $300 billion tax plan. The hearing was attended by representatives from enterprises and industry from China and the United States. For convenience Spin Garment enterprises will understand the latest progress of the hearing, and the textile chamber of Commerce will track the hearing dynamically in real time. On the first day of the hearing in June 17th, American Apparel and footwear Rick Helfenbein, President and chief executive officer of the AAFA, spoke at the hearing and objected to the US $300 billion levy. For the full text of the AAFA hearing, please refer to the following.

In June 25th, China Chamber of Commerce on textiles import and export will give a speech at the hearing. The textile chamber of Commerce will continue to pay attention to the follow-up dynamics of the hearing.

Testimony at the hearing of the Trade Representative Office of the United States

USTR 2019-0004-0001

Rick Helfenbein, President and chief executive officer of the American Apparel and Footwear Association

June 17, 2019

On behalf of the AAFA, the national trade association of the clothing and footwear industry, its suppliers and consumers' partners, I would like to thank you for having the opportunity to participate in this hearing.

AAFA stands for more than 300 companies and more than 1000 world famous. brand 。 Our industry employs nearly 4 million American workers, contributing $about 400000000000 annually to the US retail industry.

We would like to put forward three basic views on this survey.

First, tariffs can not solve the problem of intellectual property rights (IPR).

We support your efforts in seeking to resolve many potential disputes with China. Forced technology spanfer and intellectual property theft have undermined our ability to create and promote employment in the United States. AAFA members have a long history in improving the implementation of China's intellectual property rights, especially in the trademark Copyright, patent and trade secrets. Although we have seen some progress in recent years, these gains are unstable and are not enough to overcome the systemic problems that harm our members and their employees and shareholders. Therefore, we strongly support targeted efforts to ensure a sustained and long-term solution to this problem. However, it is important to note that we need to make sure that attempts to resolve problems affecting our industry will not jeopardize our overall trade partnership and suit the remedy to the case.

Two, don't tax consumers in the United States.

We are deeply disturbed by the administration's proposal to include clothing, footwear and home textiles on the list (items classified in chapter 61-64, including the harmonized tariff system (HTS)). It is shown in Appendix A. We hope to remove these products from the list immediately. Our products have already imposed high tariffs (before the Special 301 survey, our industry accounted for 6% of all US imports, but paid 51% of all tariffs). Our products are irrelevant to the fundamental problem that the government is trying to solve, namely, to solve the problem of compulsory technology spanfer and intellectual property theft. In addition to companies and workers who support these products, tariffs on consumer goods that are used by every American will hurt American consumers. We expect the prices of these commodities will rise, sales will drop and jobs will be reduced.

Please consider the following:

The United States has imposed a large amount of border tax on our products. The average tax rate for all US imports is less than 1.4%, but the average tax rate for our products is 10.8% to 14.2%. Some products have high tariffs. For example, American tariffs on ski jackets, baby garments and tennis shoes are 27.7%, 32% and 67.5% respectively. In the early days of the great depression, our government initially implemented these tariff rates to protect our industries. We are used to such rates even if the final result fails because they have little or no commercial production in the us today. Please do not increase our burden.

So far, China is the largest supplier of these products. In 2018, China accounted for about 42% of all clothing imported to the United States, accounting for 69% of all footwear imported to the United States. China has become the largest supplier because it has an unparalleled supply chain from generation to generation. Although some countries can provide alternative schemes for current China's business, without all the substantial increase in the cost of goods and the integrity of their products, all these countries do not have enough equipment to deal with the huge number of spanfers needed - which will arouse concern about the issue of commodity safety.

Additional tariffs imposed on US imports of Chinese goods will raise the prices of US goods. In the US, consumers need to buy 8 pairs of shoes and 68 clothes annually on average. Disruptions in the supply chain will make every American feel the negative impact of this behavior. Every American will have to pay more or spend less. Under the influence of 25% extra tariffs, we expect a family of four to spend at least 500 dollars to pay for daily consumer goods. We fear that the lower income Americans will bear the impact of this progressive progressive tax - not only the higher tax rates for many low - cost commodities, but the majority of the income of the group will be used to buy necessities such as clothes and shoes. Moreover, the reduction in purchases will ultimately damage the US economy, threatening the 4 million employment opportunities currently in the US apparel, footwear, travel and home industries.

Additional taxes will make intellectual property problems worse, not better. As mentioned above, China is mainly stealing our intellectual property in the form of counterfeit goods. But tariff increases do not solve the problem. In fact, since such products do not have to pay extra excise tax, they are more attractive to consumers. Therefore, tariffs may encourage and increase counterfeit products. At the same time, counterfeiters are trying to evade taxation system in order to avoid cost increase and spanit spanportation, which will become a daily problem. As an industry, we have made many suggestions on how to better enforce intellectual property law enforcement in China to USTR. We look forward to working with you and putting these ideas into practice. What we are worried about is that the achievements in recent years will be forced to stop because of the political factors of the trade war.

Third, do not tax American manufacturers.

We continue to push ahead with "made in the United States", but to our dismay, the new tax list includes imported textiles, Shoe material Equipment, machinery and other major categories of products that our member units need to produce in the United States. As a matter of fact, you have removed many of them before the tax list, but this time we re listed them, which shocked us. Therefore, we re attach the HTS coding (Harmonized Tariff System) of these commodities to the testimony (see Appendix A). Products include: circular knitting machines, looms, embroidery machines, warp knitting machines, textile winding machines, sewing machines, automatic sewing equipment and textile spinning machines for knitting socks and other products, all of which are equipment used by the United States to produce textiles, clothing and footwear.

When we finally see the increase in "US made" business components, we consider it unreasonable to impose an additional 25% tariff on these products. Among these products, China is the largest equipment supplier in the United States. Even though China is not the largest supplier, it is also in the top five. Any additional tariffs imposed on China will spanfer major pricing power to other suppliers, such as Japan, Germany or Italy, which will lead to an increase in the cost of various raw materials. We are firmly opposed to the inclusion of these products in the scope of taxation.

In conclusion, when you have heard our complaints about several issues affecting our member units and our industry, we are very pleased to see that the Trump administration and the Chinese side continue to carry out this dialogue. There are many problems to be solved in our relationship, including the Chinese government's ban on textile exports from the United States to its recycling and processing activities.

We support the Trump administration's resolution of the Chinese problems facing the United States. At the same time, we also hope that you will speed up the process of solving this problem. Unpredictability is an unhealthy expression of trade relations between China and the United States. We are worried about the clothing and footwear industry and the economic problems of the whole country.

Raising tariffs does not solve our problems. Please do not impose additional duties on us. Please remove our products from the tax list.

Thank you for your consideration of our views. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.